Viktoriia SAFONOVA (AIN) | Women Free Skating | 2025 – Beijing

Our next skater, Victoria Savonova, 22 years old. And this, like Josephine Taiga before, a skater who has had the Olympic experience. She finds herself in seventh place. A couple of points adrift of that important top five. She skated well in the short program and wants to skate even better now. It was what I had to live. It was the background music, it was a lot that I felt. I will live, and there I will be. While a bar passes with my grave, I will sing. You will always be what I was, all my sugar for you. I will live, I will live. And I can't cry anymore, I will live to find you again. Today my eyes and my heart want another relation. In the soul of my people, in the leather, in the hands of the fireman. And maybe perfect is the wrong term. Maybe it's not perfect, but it is so close. Quality. How? Oh, my gosh. The quality and the consistency of the takeoff, how quickly she got into rotation and how quickly she was able to check out and glide on the landing. Just beautiful. The GOE scores, the positive scores of the GOE, the quality are all there. And Victoria Savonova was third at the last Olympic qualifier four years ago at the Nebelhorn Trophy. She had to secure her spot there because she was forced to withdraw from Worlds in 2021 with a positive COVID test. She's had her challenges. But the way in which this athlete has stayed focused on this goal to compete again at Olympic Games without competitive competitive international experience is so, so admirable. And she has delivered. She's not so much of an emotive skater, but at the end of that program, you saw some emotion come out in that expression. This technique and precision, really precision of the execution of the technical elements was off the charts. And in light of all that we've seen in the skaters, I've got to remark on this. It's fascinating to me how the audience are reacting to spirals in this event. The Chinese audience here really appreciative of a sustained at the best. Look at the feet come up tight together and she clears this. There is just one element on the quarter, I think that was it. Wow. Such a solid performance. And this last triple loop, she really took her time making sure that she was going to deliver the clean skate. And as we look at the triple loops for the double axel double toe, it's confirmation also of the fitness that she had to be able to put both of the loops in the second half of the program to get the extra boost in base value without competition experience. This is somebody who's obviously been training their run through very, very hard. So she adds about seven points to her technical score because of Gio is the quality of those elements. Well, it's like we've said already, I love it when there's a convincing skate like that to secure that, you know, it's such a huge deal to qualify for the Olympic Games again. And when they skate like that, OK, good. You totally pick your ticket. There's still more to come. It might not happen. But she's justified it if she gets it. Well, I think she's going to have a good score here. Hundred twenty four point two zero. That is first in the free program and added to the short. It's a one eighty one point nine one. As Victoria Svoboda takes the lead.